Have You Checked Your Business Credit Recently?
Business credit is so important and it’s much different than personal credit. Gerri Detweiler is the Education Director at Nav and chats with Ramon Ray on the importance of business credit.
Business vs Personal Credit
Did you know your business can have its own credit report and score?
What’s different about business and personal credit, is that no one has to get your permission to check your business credit. Anyone can check it.
Gerri says it can affect your ability to secure funding, insurance, and whether you get those big, important contracts.
How Do I Check My Business Credit?
There are 3 major agencies:
- Equifax
- Experian
- Dunn and Bradstreet
Visit Nav.com and get your FREE credit report, if you have a business credit report with one of these three agencies.
If you don’t already have business credit, Nav can help you establish it.
Gerri says, “the ultimate goal once you have business credit is to use it to get what you want, including better financing.”
Mature Businesses Need Business Credit, Too
Gerri says that it’s a common occurrence at Nav for them to see established businesses that don’t have business credit report or score.
These businesses haven’t done business with companies that report their payment history to the credit bureaus. Gerri advises that business owners be proactive in seeking out companies who do report payment history to the credit bureaus because that’s how you establish good credit.
Worst Case Scenario
Poor credit can impact your business’s ability to get things like:
- Insurance
- Getting Bonded
- Business Deals- Fortune 500 or large companies will check your business credit history
- Financing- many lenders check business credit and poor credit could reduce your low-cost options
When you sign up for a free Nav account you can immediately check your business credit through the big three credit monitoring agencies for businesses, as well as check your personal credit.
Gerri says you can also link your bank account to match you to financing options. Nav works with over a hundred lenders across the company and they can show you which financing options are a good fit based on your qualifications. Nav won’t sell your personal information with lenders.
Did you know: Business identity theft is a problem.
Business Fraud
“Business identity theft is a problem,” says Gerri. She points out that if you aren’t checking your business’s credit report regularly, you won’t find out about it until it’s too late. You could end up having to shut down your business while you deal with debt collectors, creditors who think you owe them money, your website can be taken over by the thief. If you’re monitoring your business credit on a regular basis, you’ll be able to see if something suspicious pops up and you can act fast.
At Nav you can do these things in one, secure place, for FREE:
- Check business and personal credit
- Build strong credit for your business
- Get better financing
- Monitor your business’s credit on an ongoing basis
Financing Made Easy
Financing can be overwhelming and very time consuming for small businesses. There are over 44 different options for business owners and sorting through that can be difficult. Nav can help. Once you sign up for your free Nav account, they use your business credit information, personal credit information, you can even link your bank account, to help you get better financing.
Visit www.Nav.com/SmartHustle to get your FREE Nav account and start financially securing your business!
This article published in partnership with Nav!